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Sociolinguistics from the Periphery "presents a fascinating book about change: shifting political, economic and cultural conditions; ephemeral, sometimes even seasonal, multilingualism; and altered imaginaries for minority and indigenous languages and their users."

ABOUT THE AUTHORLaurent Danon-Boileau is Professor of General Linguistics andLanguage Acquisition at the Sorbonne. He is one of France'smost respected child psychoanalysts working and practicing atthe Centre Alfred-Binet in Paris. He has published widely in thearea of linguistics and psychoanalysis and is also a novelist.

SYNOPSISThe author's present book is the English translation of hisFrench version originally published as 'L'Enfant Qui Ne DisaitRien' in 1995. According to the translator Kevin Windle, thetranslated version does not correspond in every detail to theFrench original published by Calmann-Levy due to smallrevisions to the text made by Danon-Boileau while the work wasin progress.

Somehow reminiscent of Oliver Sacks's 'The Man Who Mistook HisWife for a Hat', this intriguing book introduces the reader topatients of surpassing strangeness, who suffer from severepsychological difficulties blocking their ability to speak or read.For almost two decades Danon-Boileau has been working withso-called silent children. When these children are put in hisanalytical care they are generally between three and sevenyears old. After three years of special training with the authorthey usually manage to overcome their inhibitions and speakmore or less fluently. The aim of Danon-Boileau's book is to findout why his treatment leads to this success. For instance, thereader experiences the author's sessions with Kim who is able toname objects correctly, but when trying to express herself lapsesinto a private, unintelligible language of her own. She useswords to name animals whereas she seems to prefer using herhands to express her wishes or her memories. Then the readermakes Benjamin's acquaintance, a boy who is unable to clearlydistinguish between his imaginary world and the real world,whose mind is so taken up with the imaginary that he hasneither the time nor the mental space for learning in thetraditional sense. Besides other silent children there is thebilingual Rachid who does not use language to communicate but- despite her age of just four years -- can read numbersconsisting of several digits and count objects up to twelve.

CRITICAL EVALUATIONThe author explores the cases of six children (Fabien, Kim,Rachid, Benjamin, Pierre, Rama) through accounts based onnotes taken on the day of their sessions, thus enabling him toemphasize the individual features of each single child's speech.Essentially, Danon-Boileau tries to tell stories, thus recurringhis narrative talent, about the dynamic exchange between thethree complementary groups generating the obstacles to theacquisition of language: the cognitive group concerning theautomatic processes developed by the brain to perceive theworld to organize appropriate modes of behaviour in the area ofvision and movement. The aphasic group referring to thetotality of automatic processes that enable us to proceed fromthought to the sounds of speech. Lastly, the symbolic group asthe most easily accessible to the psychoanalyst taking account ofeverything in language concerning the relation betweenspeakers and their own wishes as well as their awareness of thethoughts of others. According to Danon-Boileau, each one ofthese groups is coherent and partially independent, however,none of them will alone afford a comprehensive understandingof the phenomena of language, as they all exert a combinedeffect upon each other. He attempts to examine the developmentof language by constantly emphasizing the dynamic exchangebetween these complementary groups. By doing so,Danon-Boileau calls on the three theoretical fields ofpsychoanalysis, linguistics, and cognitive development, thusconsidering ways of combining the approaches of each of thesedisciplines.

Danon-Boileau sacrifices the use of a solely scientificallytechnical terminology in favour of a generally comprehensiblelanguage thus reaching a wider readership. By doing so, to myhumble opinion he nevertheless manages to grip readers withdifferent experience and background. He even defines hisgeneral attitude to be unreflective comparing it with that of a'teddy bear' and a 'drowsy nanny', respectively, determined byinstinct and by playing. By no means does the author claim topreach any particular method, instead he suggests a way oflooking at things in describing his way of working. This kind of- I would call it -- supreme ease in dealing with this complicatedsubject is the definite benefit of Danon-Boileau's book. Iabsolutely share Jerome Brunner's acclaim for 'The Silent Child'printed on the book's jacket: ''Combines the highest quality ofcase writing with speculations that are remarkable in theirpenetration''.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER:
ABOUT THE REVIEWERGuido Oebel (PhD in Linguistics) is a native German and currentlyemployed as an associate professor with Saga National Universityand as a visiting professor with Private University of Kurume,both situated on the Southern island of Kyushu/Japan. His mainareas of research are: FLL, particularly German as a ForeignLanguage (DaF), sociolinguistics, bilingualism, adult education.